Survival Of The Fittest

"She is the best!", Conrad stated with a loud, but short laugh until redirecting his attention from going to prom with his girlfriend to Emma's plan on Prom. She will ask somebody, a friend. If Conrad had not already a partner, he probably would have offered to go with her. But he had one already, so he could not help, really. Except maybe he could suggest her to go with somebody.

"You should ask Noah. Or maybe Oskar. But, do you really need a partner as the announcer and organiser of the evening? Not that you are not allowed to have one, but you are probably busy organising or announcing the show."

Conrad thought about what he said, and quickly corrected himself.

"Uh, maybe not. I think you should actually relax that evening. You don't have to work hard there. You have done enough work already organising the things. That evening should be a stressless one for you. Good work should be rewarded with a break from work. A short, relieving vacation from your hard council work, so to say."

Almost immediately, Conrad had offered suggestions. Emma knew who Oskar and Noah were. Oskar was on the cheer team, if she remembered correctly, and was rather, well, cheerful. Noah… she was sure she'd seen some of his videos. Someone had linked her to one, actually, so at least that particular one. At first she thought it was mean, until she realized "Pina" was a character he played and not a real person a few seconds later. Still pretty mean, but not as bad as it could have been?

Though, Conrad seemed to think that she needed to relax that evening. "Relax"? Admittedly, that word had… slight ugly connotations with her. It wasn't just the drowsiness, for the record. It's just that there's always something that needs to be taken care of. Still, though, she got what he was getting at. Once you're done, sit back and just enjoy yourself for the evening.

"You think so?" she asked. "I mean, things aren't going to blow up if I'm not announcing or something, definitely. But I kind of want to make sure everything's sorted out first, at least. Still, though. It'll be good no matter what I decide on doing."

Really, finding a friend-date and spending the evening with him? Would be fun. Spending the evening organizing the event? Stressful, but rewarding. Not organizing the event but going alone? Might not be as good as the friend-date, but that was a might. No matter what, though, Emma enjoyed school events. Whatever thing she decided to do that evening, it should be good.

Emma was still deciding who to go with, and Conrad threw out two possible names. Bridgette didn't know much about either of them, but they were likable people. Oskar was a popular guy, and Noah...well, he didn't seem too bad. He had a YouTube channel, but Bridgette never looked into it and didn't even remember the channel's name.

And Emma was considering not even going at all. Bridgette could sympathize with her concerns - she'd be worried about how things were running, too. Conrad was encouraging her to take a night off, and part of Bridgette wanted to as well. At the very least she could soothe some worries on that part.

"He's right," she chimed in. "If you'r worried about planning, don't sweat it - there's a whole committee to fall back on. I mean, it all depends on what you want to do, but don't let that hold you back."

Conrad had to release a strong, hard laugh when Emma joked about things blowing up when she's not organising things. It was an obscure thought.

When Bridgette added her comment, supporting Conrad's statement, he had to agree with her.

"Exactly! The committee would help you with organising all the things and you could relax. The Sadie Hawkins would not become a catastrophe. And even if it would be, heck, it's just Sadie Hawkins. The Prom would be much more important."

Wondering how Emma's thought on that was.

Bridgette was right: even if she took some time off from planning, there was a whole committee to make sure things went okay. Still though, even if she were to spend the evening just simply… relaxing at the dance, she wanted to be 100 percent sure that everything is sorted. Besides, Emma was the kind of person who wasn't satisfied if she hadn't accomplished something each day. If it wasn't the dance, it was a school trip. If it wasn't a school trip, it was a fundraiser. If it wasn't a fundraiser, it was a school dance. That's just how she did things.

"Oh! Prom" she said as she gently massaged the skin between her thumbs and forefingers. "That's true. If we spend all of our time working on the appetizer, we aren't going to have a good main course."

People had bigger expectations for Prom than they did Sadie Hawkins. Sadie Hawkins was supposed to be more calm and relaxed. Not as much pressure, you know? But yes. Prom was definitely something they needed to sort out too. Not as close on the horizon, but still something that they needed to focus on in the near future.

Conrad soothed her mood further by bringing up Prom. Bridgette had been thinking about it herself, but she wasn't doing any serious planning. Sure, she had theme ideas and knew what they had to do, but she was always preoccupied with the current dance.

The two of them had a point - Prom did seem like a much bigger deal. Bridgette had never even heard of a Sadie Hawkins dance until she reached high school.

"That's true," Bridgette responded. "Prom is the real deal here. The Sadie Hawkins dance will be fine. If anything, let yourself enjoy this dance before working on the next one."

"Yeah, the main course should be tasty", Conrad said with a chuckle as a reaction to Emma's genius allegory.

Looking back at his cellphone, he directed the topic back at the current dance.

"Sooo, is there anything super important left to be done for Sadie?"

Emma put a finger to her cheek in thought.

"Well… there's some stuff we still need to go over. I'll elaborate more once the meeting starts, since not everyone is here yet."


The meeting went well. They got plenty of things sorted out! There was a DJ who usually did music for the dances. He'd already said that he had time in his schedule to show up, so that was good. "Cosmic Space Adventure" also seemed pretty easy to find decorations for. Planets, stars, spaceships, aliens, and astronauts. She was pretty sure that they could find good space things with a quick look through a party store and the school's storage. It'd be more affordable and more practical, as well. "Space" wasn't the only theme that had been tossed about for Sadie Hawkins this year, of course. Emma had been particularly fond of "Secret Mission." Basically, it was a bit of a James Bond, secret agent theme. Though, she had personally suggested "1980s theme." You see, she was thinking of Back to the Future, and, well, her mind went to "80s." However, when they discussed it some time ago, everyone had agreed that "space" was the way to go. So "space" it was! It should be nice, seeing the gym made to look like something out of science fiction.

Come to think of it, another perk of "Cosmic Space Adventure" was that you could match the music to the theme pretty easily. For example, the Men in Black song! That wouldn't be too bad as a song on the suggested playlist. Maybe Ariana Grande's "Break Free"? If only for the video. That had a space theme, she knew.

Once the meeting was officially over, Emma noticed that there was a bit of an ache in her arms and legs. It didn't help that her head felt a little weird, too. She otherwise felt okay, but she needed to stretch a bit, and probably head straight home afterwards. Her body was giving her all the signals that she needed to lay down.

As Emma left, red folder in hand, she thought about what Conrad and Bridgette said. She probably could tone it down a bit this time, but still. She could at least help set up the decorations. No ladders, of course, but tablecloth, moving a few things around in the gym? She could do it. Emma wasn't happy until she was doing something. Of course, she could take it easy for the dance proper. If everything's set up and there's nothing else to be taken care of, she could go with a big smile on her face.

((Emma Luz continued elsewhere. If there's anything here that needs changing, lemme know))